Chapter 83

ELEANOR

“Kill him and take back your throne.”

The words hung in the air for a solid five seconds.

I stared at the white-haired fucking goddess of the hunt, who seemed to be floating in the air. She looked calm, poised, her gaze fixed on me.

I looked up at Aric, whose arms were tightly wound around my waist. His sapphire gaze met mine. He seemed calm as well.

“I’m not sure how many more of these surprises I can take,” Mother whispered behind me. I agreed.

“Father,” I breathed. I looked at Demetrius. He still had his hands on the king’s neck, ready to rip his head off.

“What happened to the Troy family?” I asked. “What did the Night family do to them?”

“They destroyed them,” Demetrius answered.

“They killed them all, children, turned vampires, human slaves. The whole household was decimated. Those who weren’t in the castle at the time were hunted down.

“It took them what, sixty years to find and kill the last princess? Was that it, Lucius? The last princess was only two hundred years old. They tied her up and waited for the sun to rise.

“A most painful death for a child,” Diana breathed, staring at the bloody king.

“We’ve all been at war,” the king growled. “They didn’t surrender.”

“Indeed. They did not. And you had no pity.”

“The princess could have come after the throne when she grew up. My grandfather, ~our~ grandfather, didn’t want to risk it.”

He glared at Elizabeth, whose face was streaked with red tears. I felt no pity for the bawling creature. Maybe once, she had had a heart, when she had Romulus, but it was cracked and ashen now.

“I suppose what goes around, comes around. Isn’t that the law of nature? Balance?” Diana giggled.

She placed her hand on my shoulder. “Here she is, the descendant of that last princess. Here to claim her throne back. I wonder, will she take pity on you? I do hope you treated her right.” She let out a wicked chuckle.

Her words were wild, like fantasy. In the last couple of days, I turned into a vampire to be with the love of my life and my family.

I incidentally found the last remnant of my human family, a family I never expected to find, and now I discover that I am a descendant from the original royal pureblood family.

I had new family members just popping out of the woodwork!

But there was something truly heartwarming about it. I glanced at my human brother, standing tall beside me, his chest puffed out, his gaze switching from Diana to Elizabeth on the floor at his feet.

I could hear his heart beating.

“David is older than me. Is he not the real heir?” I asked, turning to David.

A crowd full of crimson eyes turned to look at him. Diana smiled at him, and her eyes remained pale blue.

“If he were a pureblood, there would be a debate. As a human, however, he cannot claim the throne,” she answered.

“I don’t want it,” David added, quickly glancing down at me.

“But I can’t claim it either,” I breathed. “I’m just twenty-five! I can’t rule over vampires who are two thousand years old.”

“To rule isn’t to be alone, child,” Diana said gently. She turned away from the current royal family.

“Though some pretended they had all the power on their own. Traditionally it was the family, together who are royal and rule as one family. Like the Troy family did.

“You do not have to be the queen alone on your pedestal. You can have your family around you.”

“I like the sound of that,” I said, glancing at Aric. He just squeezed me, and I suddenly felt a little calmer.

He grinned at me. He had barely stopped grinning since I told him about the child growing inside me. Nothing was going to tarnish this day for him. He looked just so happy.

I felt him nuzzling into the side of my neck, peppering my skin with light kisses.

“My queen,” he mused, chuckling lightly.

I grew more determined. I had no idea what I was doing, but with my whole family by my side, I knew it wouldn’t be bad. We had already defeated the Night family, and they lay sprawled at our feet.

I found myself stepping toward the king. His blood had dried against his face, and I could tell his wounds were healed. He sneered at me, baring his fangs.

“I will give you the same option your ancestors gave mine,” I declared. “Surrender, live in peace among the lords and ladies of the court. No bad blood. Or die and watch your family die.”

“Eleanor!” Alexander’s voice was strained. He was pinned under Phoenix’s stiletto. I glanced at him. His eyes were wide.

“What?” I scowled at him.

“Just listen to me,” he growled, pushing Phoenix off him, she tripped back and almost lunged at him again, but he slid toward me faster and grasped my hand.

“I will be by your side, Eleanor. I will show you what we are meant to be together. I am a prince, you a queen. Our ancestors were in love. We will be as well.”

Aric growled in annoyance. I was looking down at him with pity and disgust.

I couldn’t read the prince’s expression. He looked earnest, but there was something dark lurking in his thoughts. He was a survivor.

“Can we lock him up somewhere? Are there cells in the dungeons, perhaps?” I glanced around, and Selene suddenly appeared, nodding.

Phoenix grabbed Alexander, pulling him to my knees and pushing her weight down to keep him down. He bowed his head in fake submission. Phoenix hissed at him.

I turned to the king again. “An ultimatum, like you gave my parents. Surrender or die. Choose now,” I growled.

Lucius glared up at me. “You are no pureblood queen,” he snarled at me. “You are a fucking human blood bag. You will always be beneath me,” he spat.

My expression remained passive. But I could feel my heartbeat, the blood rushing through my veins.

Snippets of memories resurfaced: being in the king’s hall, forcing me to kneel like a dog beside him, forcing my mother to kill me, threatening Demetrius for saving me, pushing his grandson on Phoenix, and next on me.

I didn’t care that he didn’t see me as a queen. I didn’t see myself as a queen. But I wasn’t going to be a pawn in his game anymore, for him to toss around, scaring my family for his own amusement.

“Kill him,” I stated flatly, staring at Demetrius. His moss-green eyes turned crimson.

The room was quiet for a second, then we all heard the pop and the ripping. The scent of blood filled the room. I heard the thud of a head falling to the ground, the squelching as it rolled in blood.

I stared at the headless body of the former king. King for almost a thousand years.

I could feel my eyes were deep crimson, lined with tears. But I couldn’t stop there. This was a coup d’état, a revolution.

I turned to the princesses. They looked like children, but they were centuries older than me. I especially remember Jessica biting me all those years ago.

“Choose,” I demanded.

The princesses glanced at Alexander, and he gave them a small nod. They fell to their knees, bowing their heads. I took it as a submission. I had no desire to murder anyone else.

Time would tell if letting them live would be a mistake. But Diana was firm with her words. It was undeniable that I was a pureblood turned vampire. It was obvious that I was different.

I moved through the royal family members slowly. To my surprise, they all surrendered, their lives meaning more to them than their crown. I was relieved.

I paused in front of Elizabeth, her face streaked with tears, but they weren’t tears for her brother. They were tears for her long-lost human son.

“Elizabeth,” I breathed.

She glanced up at me. Damon, her husband, was watching us closely.

I hadn’t forgotten what they put me through, what they put my whole family through. I didn’t even want to think about what they put David through.

Elizabeth gazed up at me. Her eyes were bright crimson.

“Banishment,” I declared. “For you both. One hundred years. Do not contact any pureblood. I want utter disappearance. I want you to fall off the face of the planet. Now,” I growled.

Damon and Elizabeth didn’t hesitate. Grabbing each other’s hands, they launched themselves into the crowd and disappeared into the night.

The room was quiet for a few pregnant seconds. Then I felt Aric beside me. He grasped my hand. I leaned toward him and felt his arms winding around my body.

“Congratulations, child,” Diana said with a smile. Her eyes were bright. “It only gets more complicated from now on.”

***

The next few days were a whirlwind of emotions. I had just been learning to be a vampire, and now the training wheels were already ripped off, and I had to be a vampire queen.

A little to my childlike disappointment, the title didn’t come with a bejeweled crown, though Aric promised me he would get me one if I wanted.

We just had to go through the Mcnoxnoctis storage rooms, and we’d surely find one. I tried not to gawk at that fact.

There wasn’t any coronation ceremony either, though I wouldn’t have wanted one.

The revolution that my family had started and ended by my ordering the murder of the former king was ceremony enough. From that moment, I was queen.

The information was sent far and wide. Many pureblood families started flocking toward the castle, curious to meet me, ready to give me their allegiance.

I felt like I was in some medieval movie, though Aric and Mother were very comfortable with the series of events.

In the first few nights after I officially became queen, Diana stuck around, mostly getting herself into trouble hunting humans, staying out too long, and getting outrageously drunk.

Apparently, the older you get, the more you revert to your teenage self. She did take the time to take Phoenix and me out to teach us to hunt.

Phoenix was somewhat annoyed that she needed to be taught. She’d been hunting for over four hundred years.

But I was in awe of the opportunity. The Greek and Roman goddess of the hunt was teaching me to hunt. And what a superb hunter she was.

She made no noise as she slipped through the woods, diving into the water, swinging from tree to tree.

She attacked from above most often, falling onto the prey, killing them in a second by sinking her fangs deep into their throat. The animals barely had time to know what hit them.

She then drank from them slowly, stroking their fur, coating her skin with their blood.

Then she took me human hunting. I had a much harder time, though I craved their blood a whole lot more.

Diana, Phoenix, and I dressed in modern clothing, and we took to the streets in the early evening just after the sun had set. Diana took us to a couple of bars where we drank beer and eyed our prey.

Diana pointed out the young men staring at us. They all looked healthy and happy. She told us never to go after them. These days, their disappearance would cause a lot more trouble.

She pointed toward a table of older men. They were workers, dressed in uniforms, deep into their third beers. Those, she said, could disappear a little easier.

Though she mostly recommended finding humans walking alone at night. They were the obvious targets. Anything could happen at night.

After a few evenings, Diana slipped off without saying goodbye, and though she thoroughly freaked me out most of the time, I did miss her calming presence. Nothing fazed her.

While I wasn’t hunting, I had a lot of royalty stuff to deal with. It wasn’t my forte.

I went into aeronautical engineering because I wanted to avoid business at all costs. But running a queendom was just like running a business.

I was so grateful for Demetrius when he stepped forward to help me. He had learned a lot under his father and had a true strategic mind.

He quickly told me the summary of the hundreds of businesses he had once run. I eagerly gave him the paperwork.

The big issue was my name. Aric and Father both agreed I should be a Mcnoxnoctis, that the Mcnoxnoctis family should be the royal family.

Diana and Mother were tempted to have me take the Troy name, but I couldn’t agree to that. The Troy family had been decimated. I was but a long, very long-lost descendant.

David and I kind of liked the idea of making a new pureblood family name and being Ravn, our actual surname.

In the end, that is what was decided. The new royal family, the new pureblood family, would be Ravn, descendants of the Troy family and directly connected to the Mcnoxnoctis family.

It made me happier than I thought I could be.